Does Court of Appeal have powers to reopen own case?

Lawsuit between condo residents and firm brings issue to fore

A CIVIL suit before the courts in Singapore has set a landmark poser.

The issue: Does the highest court in the land have the powers to reopen and set aside its own judgments?

It pitted one top lawyer against another in the High Court, in a debate behind closed doors before Justice Choo Han Teck on Wednesday.

He has reserved judgment.

The issue began in 2005, when a three-judge panel in the Court of Appeal ruled in a 2-1 decision that residents of Grange Heights condominium could use an access path leading to their development.

The path runs through a Grange Road property owned by Lee Tat Development.

In 2007, when Grange Heights went to the High Court to ask for a ruling on its building of a proper road, the court said it saw no need to do this, as the matter was bound by the 2005 ruling.

Lee Tat appealed. A hearing followed and each side subsequently presented four sets of submissions, at the end of which the court reserved judgment.

Then last December, the Court of Appeal ruled that the condominium's right of access no longer existed. Lee Tat thus won the right to close off the access road.

Then came Grange Heights' move. Its condominium management committee pored over the grounds of the judgment and hired lawyers from Rajah & Tann led by Senior Counsel Sundaresh Menon to apply to the Appeals Court to review and set aside its decision.

But for such a move to proceed, it had to be first established whether the Court of Appeal had the powers provided by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, or under its own inherent jurisdiction, to reopen a case it had already heard and set aside the decision.

Also at issue was whether the Appeals Court could reconstitute itself to reconsider or rehear matters arising from the judgment.

In other words, how final are the decisions made in the highest court of the land?

The High Court hearing was thus convened this week to settle the matter of the powers of the court.

Senior Counsel Tan Cheng Han, assisted by lawyers from Arfat Selvam & Partners, represented the defendants Lee Tat in the hearing.

In submissions filed, they argued that the powers of the court were defined by the legislation and that it had no statutory powers to rehear its own case.

Among other things, they added that the Appeals Court here does not have as wide-ranging powers as do the courts in England, and that it operates within the scope conferred by the Singapore Parliament.

Grange Heights' lawyers countered in their submissions that the Appeals Court, being the court of last resort, had the power to rehear a case and to set aside its decision.

They argued that the court was being asked to look at the process by which the decision was reached and not assess the substantive merits of the decision itself.

There was a public interest in the issue as it affected the legal rights of litigants generally.

---------------------------------------------------
ABOUT THE CASE
FOR more than 30 years, Madam Ching Mun Fong, who owns and runs Lee Tat Development, has fought - and failed - to get the courts to close off an access road running through her Grange Road property to the adjoining Grange Heights condominium site.

But last year, the Court of Appeal overturned a decision that a previous Appeals Court made three years ago and granted Madam Ching her wish.

Her lawyer Ernest Balasubramaniam had argued before the court that the issue of right of way in the light of changed circumstances had not been previously addressed.

The Court of Appeal, comprising Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong and Judges of Appeal V. K. Rajah and Andrew Phang, found that circumstances had changed and that the access road was neither needed nor an issue anymore.

Residents of Grange Heights have two other access points - at St Thomas Walk and River Valley Grove.

The management council of the Grange Heights Condominium now wants the Court of Appeal to reopen and rehear the case, but before the court can consider doing so, the High Court has to first establish whether it has the powers to do so.

Source: Straits Times, 10 Oct 2009